A shopping or Christmas trip to Chicago for the holidays requires a stroll along Michigan Avenue. At one end of this “Magnificent Mile” stands Bloomingdale's and Watertower Place while at west end visitors discover Millennium Park and The Art Institute of Chicago. The building's monumental lions rest on either side of the museum's steps, bejeweled with large wreaths adorning their necks.
Banners on the outside announce the theme “Home For The Holidays” to celebrate the return of Marc Chagall's America Windows created as public art for the Art Institute in 1975 through`1977. The windows were commissioned in the era when Picasso envisioned his monument for the Richard J. Daley center in 1967. Public art found a home amid Chicago skyscrapers with Joan Miro's Chicago (1963), Jean Dubuffet's The Forest (1969) and Alexander Calder's 1974-painted steel sculpture. Twentieth century modern art enhanced Chicago streets.
This Christmas the America Windows enhance an exhibition alongside marquettes of these great permanent installations from the 60's and 70's in a tribute to the best public art. Chagall's windows were dismantled from their original Art Institute site to be cleaned and restored when the museum began construction on their new Contemporary Wing. Now on view in a quiet corner near a south entrance and stairway to the café, the stained glass panels complete one wall with cobalt blue light, translucent and filled with Chagall iconography%u23AFan angel, fruit, flowers, flying people and a village below the expansive blue heavens.
Chagall's six panels incorporate American history into the Chicago skyline that honors the arts. From left to right, the windows reference music, painting, literature, architecture, theater and dance. Viewers recognize the familiar Statue of Liberty amid fruit and fiddlers, moons and musical symbols (an angel blowing a golden trumpet), and people swirling among the stars. Black markings throughout the panels delineate details and texture, a delight to contemplate and study from the benches provided nearby as Chagall's poetic painting style transformed to stained glass.
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While the placement might be less stunning that the previous one situated at the end of a long gallery promenade connecting the old and modern museums that now leads to the Contemporary Wing, the windows remain a spectacular tribute to Chagall's mastery of this difficult medium, stained glass, and the inspiration public art instills to the surrounding community. If the upcoming holidays bring a trip to Chicago into those plans, stop at windows, relax and enjoy all the art, browse the gift shop, and view these restored America Windows that truly have returned to their rightful home for the season and into the 2011 New Year.
